Bárðar saga as a source for reconstruction of pre-Christian religion?
Paper by Eldar Heide given at the second meeting of the Old Norse Folklorist Network
The Goddess Frig: Reassessing an Anglo-Saxon Deity
The world of the Anglo-Saxon gods will forever remain a mystery to us, existing just beyond the reach of written history.
ARTICLES: The Deflation of the Medieval in Joyce’s Ulysses
For James Joyce, Irish nationalism, with its appeal to patriotic emotionality and promotion of interest in the archaic and medieval Irish past, was suspect.
Fast and Feast – Christianization through the Regulation of Everyday Life
This article will illustrate that an important part of rulers’ wish to create a Christian society was the introduction of Christian legislation.
Hungary’s Conversion to Christianity: The Establishment of Hungarian Statehood and its Consequences to the Thirteenth Century
The Carpathian Basin occupies a peculiar place in history. It was the ground where Roman-Germanic world met that of the Slavs and mounted nomad peoples, where no group had achieved sustained unity before the state of Hungary was founded.
Saints’ Cults in Medieval Livonia
Saints’ cults played a crucial role in medieval society. Although we know very little about the beliefs and rituals of the indigenous peoples of Livonia, either before or after the thirteenth-century conquest, we may assume that the process of Christianization must have caused major changes in their religious practices.
To Be or Not to Be… a Christian: Some New Perspectives on Understanding the Christianisation of Estonia
The Christianisation of Estonia has been a subject of extensive research already for a couple of centuries. Archaeologists generally agree that some elements of Christian religion were present in Estonia already prior to official Christianisation at the beginning of the 13th century.
Death as an architect of societies Burial and social identity during the Viking Age in South-western Scania
In my opinion, the mono-cultural Viking Age is largely the product of one past social group, that had imposed on us their narration about the events, through production of tangible and durable monuments and sources. If analysis of the past should be of any value, it needs to be not only specifically spatially located, but also socially located.
Making Sacrifices: Beowulf and Film
This essay reviews opening scenes in some recent film Beowulfs, which, although they have nothing at all to say about Scyld Scefing, suggest a sacrificial reading of the prologue and perhaps even the whole poem.
The Uses Made of History by the Kings of Medieval England
The kings of medieval England, besides using history for the entertainment of themselves and their courts, turned it to practical purposes. They plundered history-books for precedents and other evidences to justify their claims and acts. They also recognised its value as propaganda, to bolster up their positions at home and strengthen their hands abroad.
Viking Human Sacrifices: Hollywood vs Reality
In his article, ‘Plastic Pagans: Viking Human Sacrifice in Film and Television’, Harry Brown notes a very key difference between how it is being portrayed and how it was in reality.
Approaches to paganism and uses of the pre-Christian past in Geoffrey of Monmouth and Snorri Sturluson
The dissertation is a comparative analysis of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s and Snorri Sturlusson’s descriptions of paganism and uses of pre-Christian history. What was the function of these pre-Christian narratives, and what apporaches were used by the two authors to construct a complete image of the past, acceptable to their contemporary societies?
The Origins of the Tale of the Blood Drinking Hungarians
The motif of the covenant of blood was quite widespread in West European chronicle literature, and it was not necessarily applied to Oriental peoples, nor particularly to Hungarians.
Some Considerations Regarding the Slavic God Triglav
This article presents a description Triglav, a god or complex of gods in Slavic mythology.
St. Patrick’s Irish Pride
In honour of the day, it seems fitting to throw out some interesting facts about St. Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint.
A Comparative Analysis Of Early Medieval North-West Slavonic And West Baltic Sacred Landscapes
The major aim of our paper is to present a comparative analysis of early medieval north-west Slavonic and Prussian objects and places which are interpreted in a sacral context.
Judith’s Necessary Androgyny: Representations of Gender in the Old English Judith
The Old English poem Judith explores Anglo-Saxon representations of femininity and masculinity by constructing a double-gendered hero who differs from the biblical version of the same woman.
Medieval Thought and its Architectural Expression
This dissertation will study the correlation and influences between a series of underlying beliefs and how these find expression in the architecture and setting of place.
Kings, chieftains and public cult in pre-Christian Scandinavia
The article addresses the question of the performance of pre-Christian public cult by political leaders in early medieval Scandinavia.
The Acculturation of Scandinavians in England: A consideration of the burial record
he portrayal of the ‘Vikings’ as an archetypal barbarian ‘other,’ wreaking death and destruction wherever they went, was already current in the medieval period, but in England the depictions became more extreme in the centuries after the attacks.
Heathen: Linguistic Origins and Early Context
It is my hope that this endeavor will allow the reader to have a serious understanding of the origins, early history, and more importantly the context of the word heathen, and what this might have meant for the people implied by it.
The Riurikid Relationship with the Orthodox Christian Church in Kievan Rus
Prior to the late tenth century, the princes of the Riurikid dynasty were rulers over the loose collection of pagan Slavic tribes and minor city states that were Kievan Rus. However, in a relatively short period, the dynasty had linked itself and its legitimacy to rule to the Orthodox Christian Church centered in Constantinople.